


So Put A Battery In Your Leg

by Floodlight



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-11
Updated: 2012-12-11
Packaged: 2017-11-20 21:18:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/589731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Floodlight/pseuds/Floodlight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Of computer screens and of Armani suits and of two people from virtually polar opposite places. Sort of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	So Put A Battery In Your Leg

Stiles stirs awake, shielding his eyes from the protruding sunlight. He was almost 99.9% sure he closed his curtains before he went to bed, but then again, the thirty minutes between getting out of his chair and passing out on top of his bed more often than not blur in his mind to be tucked away in the shadows of his brain, along with all the other insignificant thoughts.

He stretches, Batman shirt rising up his chest, then pushes himself up.

He hears rustling, crumpled papers thud to the floor, but he merely shrugs.

The thought crosses him briefly that maybe, there’s something on these papers he’ll need. But those hunts through his room to find the hastily documented train of his quick-paced thoughts constitute for the most part of his weekly work-out.

He’ll thank himself for this later on.

His room is a mess. An **organized** mess, something he tells his father the ten-something times a month he visits him. With a capital O. Because he’ll find anything he needs. And it’s _his_ lair anyway, thank you kindly.

When he returns from his morning whiz, he’s immediately drawn to the screens on his desk, light glowing softly and less hurtful than the sunlight that woke him up – so rude, by the way.

His computers – yes, plural – are his preciouses – he sometimes turns into Sméagol when he drinks chocolate milk, breathing out a hoarse “myyyprecious” as he strokes one of the smooth screens that take up his view for almost all eighteen hours he is awake – and he has them as secured as they can be.

He presses his fingers to the touch screen, waiting until the click affirms that he is in fact Stiles Stilinski, and then tabs and files and programs open up for him. His world unfolds, showing all that a man should possibly want at ten am in the morning.

A red LED starts blinking and he mutters a few voice commands before Skype pops open and there is Scott, his state of dishevelment tells Stiles two things:

1) Scott really is a puppy, and,

2) Scott probably woke up not too long ago as well.

“Morning, McCall,” Stiles calls out. He finally sees his own reflection. He’s all pale skin and purple bags beneath his brown eyes. He should be outside more, he knows. He’ll catch up on hours of sun when he finally convinces Lydia to go on that trip with him.

Stiles is pretty average. If with average you mean a twenty-one years old guy with a job, ten fingers and two tonsils, then yes, average. But where a normal person spends maybe six hours a week on a computer, he spends triple that, a day. But it’s his job, which presses away the guilt.

His father wanted him to be in law enforcement, and instead, he’s become a computer nerd.

He blames Scott. After all, it was him that introduced Stiles to DC comics. And everything went downhill from there on.

“Stiles,” he gets as a greeting, so Stiles nods. It’s one of _those_ mornings.

“Do you want to play the new _Left 4 Dead_?” He pulls out a screen, looking through the rows and rows of virtual data until he finds the .exe file that allows them to play _Left 4 Dead 3_ two months before its due to be released.

Stiles enjoys the nice things of life; music, food, hacking into the classified interface of a multi-billion credit gaming empire to borrow the unreleased new games that everyone is waiting on. He’s never been a patient guy.

Scott nods, and Stiles knows that not asking what’s wrong will come back to bite him in the ass but currently he’s too busy reprogramming the sound of a swinging axe to harp music because he’s keeping Scott out of a legit college by demanding him to stay in Beacon Hills, so the least he can do is turn his friend from the uncultured swine he is to… well, a little less uncultured swine.

Harp music is classy as fuck. And Scott needs to be thankful it’s harp music this time, and not Scottish bag pipes with a side of sparkles again.

**——**

They’re hiding out in a cave and the telltale music of an incoming horde of zombies laces together with the Eminem ringtone he set to his phone. He puts his character on idle and warns Scott to not fuck up while he’s away. Right before he tears off his headset he hears muffled cursing and knows he’ll have to give Scott the you-have-to-always- _always_ -take-the-sniper-riffle-always-speech because really, you have to take the sniper riffle, _always_.

“You go for Stiles Stilinski,” he says, leaning back in his office chair. Some days he feels like the king of a giant world. (Halloween proved that he looks good in a crown.) Today is one of those days.

“Mister Stilinski, are you available to allow visitors?” The voice on the other end of the line sounds almost robotical, but he’s used to it. Over the years he’s been in the bizz, his reputation has sky-rocketed up and he gets a lot of offers from high-ranked firms in dire need of a skilled computer technician. He likes free-lance work more. He can’t commit long-term, that’d get boring.

Those firms, however, usually contact him through e-mail. This call is, to say the least, spiking his interest.

“I guess I am… When’d you feel like passing by?”

“How does in an hour sound?”

Stiles tabs out of the game and opens his digital agenda, eyes flickering over the lines of today. The only thing that’s planned for today is helping Scott with his homework – he enrolled his best friend in an online college thing, and the only reason Melissa McCall allowed it was because Stiles promised on his scout’s honor that he would help Scott pass. He’s in his second year now and passed his mid and final terms with almost all As and Bs. That might be because Stiles whispered the answers into his ear with some nifty little device he created, but hey, it’s not like anyone minds.

Not that anyone knows.

Stiles talked the guilt out of Scott by saying that eventually they’re going to start a firm together, and that Stiles doesn’t doubt Scott’s skills.

Now sometimes Scott still has panic outburts but Stiles has gotten better at getting his best friend to do what he wants, so it’s okay. Everything is always okay and life is good.

It would be perfect if Lydia was his girlfriend, but he’s waited thirteen years already – he can wait a while longer.

“In an hour sounds perfect. Do you need the-”

The conversation ends and Stiles’ eyebrows crinkle together. He wonders how they want to pass by if they don’t know the address, but he doesn’t ponder on it much.

When he comes back in the game, Scott’s alter ego lays dead on the ground.

“Always a sniper riffle, Scott.”

**——**

Stiles stumbles out of his chair approximately 55.7 minutes later when he realizes soon there’ll be people that want to hire him. He hasn’t been short on money in a while, but he needs to keep on accepting jobs before he gets stuck in the habit of not. He needs to keep working or he’ll become the lazy ass everyone thinks he’s already become.

He pulls a new pair of jeans out of his closet – the last pair, he notices, and looks for a post-it to write ‘laundry’ on it and sticks it to his computer. Otherwise he’ll forget. His mind is not organized, like, at all. He needs things to help him remember.

Since he has no time to shower he creates a cloud of deodorant and perfume gas and walks through it, feeling the particles of fragrance stick to his skin.

At least that way they won’t think he isn’t hygienic or anything.

He’s running down the stairs when he hears the bell ring.

“I’m coming,” he calls out, ducking into his living room to get his red hoodie from the couch. He pulls it on, and only then, briefly taking a breather, knows that he’s somewhat ready to open the door.

Maybe not as prepared as he would like to, but it’ll have to do.

He flings the door open, quickly picking up his glasses from a side table. They make him look professional, Lydia once said.

On his doorstep is a pile of bricks wrapped in what he spots right away is an Armani suit, hand-tailored, and a lot tighter than Stiles’ innocence can bear. He has a stubble and piercing eyes and ‘unfair’ written all over his body.

If Stiles looked like that, he would have no difficulties picking up girls. The jealousy and admiration fills his chest with a heavy heart.

When the stranger doesn’t say anything, just looks at him with an indescribably _something_ in his eyes, Stiles decides to be the brave one, “Hello?”

“Let’s go inside.”

He’s pulled into his own house, and while he usually dislikes people being rough with him - _“I am 147 pounds of pale skin and fragile bones, Scott. You’re buff because you still play Lacrosse, I wouldn’t even win a fight from Prada.”_ , which is true, because Lydia’s dog is a little monster dressed in Dior – this time he doesn’t dare speak up. He would, but he won’t, because this guy, in his impressing suit with his impressing everything, is way too overwhelming.

When he’s sat down in his own couch he finally speaks up, eyebrows knit together, and the most intelligent of things, said ever, leaves his mouth, “What?”

He’s made to sign a contract that at first he’s wary of, because it says things like “imprisonment” and “I have read and agreed to the terms and conditions” and really, those things can’t be good for him when put together in one document, but when he reads through it quickly it’s just a contract to get him to shut up.

He’s not good at shutting up.

Usually.

So he signs and then he finds out the man’s name is Hale. Hale who works for the CIA and will be staying with him while he works for them. His mind goes rampage because he needs more information. That's what his life thrives on. Information, data. So he looks for more details than he should care to want. When he’s shown Hale’s badge he figures out it’s _Derek_ _H_ ale, and that Derek is only two years older and that he looks more impressing in profile than straight-up but that no matter which angle Derek has to be the most handsome man anyone has ever seen because yes, he is handsome, damn.

He gets a sum of money whispered into his ear, a number that flashes for a second in his mind before it’s drowned out in thoughts of hot breath against pale skin and shivers that ran up his spine, and he nods when he feels his fingertips tingle to get to work.

Not everyone gets legal **permission** to hack into the CIA’s database.

**——**

The idea is simple enough. Get the best computer nerds (because really, he can see in Derek’s eyes how that’s what he thinks of Stiles) to try hacking into your database, get one of your agents to film all of it and you’ll eventually find a way to make your security waterproof.

And for Stiles, it’s like getting paid for jerking off.

The thrill of doing something he isn’t supposed to do is even better than that sensation, so really, it’s probably the best thing that’s ever happened to him.

**——**

Of course, it’s not the easiest. Recoding and reprogramming are easy. Getting through mediocre firewalls and bypassing passwords is something he’s been capable of since he was fourteen. He did it all the time when his father tried to put a password on the wifi. ‘GotobedStiles’ is just really too easy.

He would expect that his father would upgrade, knowing the sort of shenanigans his (only) son was up to, but apparently not. Stiles didn’t do much complaining.

Except, sometimes he did, asking his father to _please_ , be more challenging.

He got his favorite brand of cereal taken away for a week to give him a challenge.

Anyways, the CIA is different. Probably has the strongest firewalls on this side of the information highway. Stiles has yet to find out, but he specifically asked Derek to not give him any information except what he _really_ _h_ as to know.

There are a few rules. He doesn’t get to permanently damage anything – bummer – nor can he save any data that he doesn’t need.

That was all Derek had told him, in that low and rumbling voice, and Stiles had nodded and dragged him upstairs.

Now he’s sitting behind his screens, tapping away happily on his keyboard and he’s pretty he won’t get any sleep that night.

He pops a pill to _make_ sure of it.

**——**

Stiles groans, and sits back in his chair, rubbing his face as he tries to keep his wits together. It feels like his internal organs are vibrating – either because of the Adderall or the frustration, he can’t tell. His screens are filled with a coded database that taunts him because it’s as far as he gets.

It’s been three days.

He can’t get any of the codation transcribed, all of his programs – that he spent a _lot_ of his sparings on – seemingly unable to do the simple task. If he was a program, he would never be that iffy.

His IP address has been locked out of the domain of the archives of the CIA twice already, for six hours respective. In those hours he mostly slept, even though they were at odd hours during the day, and talked to Derek.

Derek who is at his house constantly, Derek who sleeps in the guest bedroom (next to his own room) and Derek who looks a lot more like a teddy bear when asleep.

He’s been up for over fifteen hours. He isn’t constantly on the job, though when he is it’s for long lapses of time, and after those periods the numbers spin in front of his eyes and have turned his brain to mush. In those moments, he calls Scott.

They’ve been doing his homework over Skype instead of face-to-face, because Stiles won’t let Derek be in his house by himself. He knows he can trust Derek, he feels it, the trust, the mutual respect (somehow) and yeah. But it’s not what he wants to do. He wants to be a good guest despite how he neglects Derek all the time to work.

And he doesn’t want to bring him along either.

Derek is his Derek.

“Where’s Derek?” Scott asks when he looks up from his printed sheet of assignments.

Stiles chuckles, swiveling around on his chair. His wireless headset is one of the best investments he’s ever done. “Derek who still scares me, you mean? He’s in the shower.”

Scott hums, flicking his wrist and waggling his pencil in the air. “Okay, so. ‘A and B ran a race of 480 meters. In the first heat, A gives B a head start of 48 meters and beats him by 1/10th of a minute. In the second heat, A gives B a head start of 144 meters and is beaten by 1/30th of a minute. What is B’s speed?'”

Stiles runs his tongue over the inside of his left cheek, imagining his brain buzzing like his computers usually do when he makes them do tricky things. Then, after a minute or so, he says, “12 meters a second.” Scott doesn’t doubt his intelligence and math skills (Stiles doesn’t even come close to Lydia when it comes to math, but in return, Scott doesn’t even come close to Stiles, so it works) and notes down the answer.

“He sits there all day watchinig you work, or what?”

“Pretty much. I haven’t been able to browse porn websites since he’s been here.”

Scott’s little grin makes Stiles huff and throw the closest projectile he can find, a newspaper dated two months ago.

**——**

“You should sleep more,” Derek says one day. Stiles knows it’s the fifth, or maybe the sixth day, except it could also be the seventh and as turns out, it's eight, but he’s lost track of time, and Derek doesn’t say anything about time, ever.

“I should, but hey, working,” he says, pointing his thumb to his screens. He’s been trying anything he can, going to the archives and databases through the CIA’s searching engine, or trying to trick the site into believing he’s of staff position and should be able to log in, or hack into a sister site. He’s tried plenty of things, and the closest he got was nowhere.

“You can just give up, you know.”

“I could, but I don’t feel like it.”

“Breakfast?”

Stiles had been too occupied to hear the clinking in his kitchen, but now he smells it. Eggs. It’s been a while since he had those.

Whenever they didn’t order in delivery food, Derek cooked for him, and Stiles won’t deny that he likes it. A lot. Like, a _lot_ _._ He’s been living off junk food, pre-made grocery stuff, and Saturdays of having dinner at the McCalls.

Reluctantly he peels out of his chair and trudges down the stairs, behind Derek, who still looks dashing even now he’s stopped wearing those fancy suits. Jeans and wife-beaters look perfectly fine on him as well.

He eats his eggs rapidly but doesn’t budge when his plate is empty. Derek eats a lot slower, more careful. Derek is measured in a lot of things, he's realized. Stiles props his head up and pushes his glasses up – he has been wearing them often the past few days, and he doesn’t even know why himself – to be able to get a better look at Derek.

He’s been catching glimpses of the Derek that hides behind the composed expressions and the fancy clothes. Derek is fascinating. They haven’t had too elaborate conversations, but the one time they watched a movie together while eating Chinese food was one of the best nights of his life.

He doesn’t realize he’s falling asleep at the table until he’s carried up the stairs, head lulling against a chest that feels like a wall. He mumbles incoherent things and he hears the rumbling laughter. He feels comfortable when he’s put in bed and refuses to let Derek leave.

**——**

Stiles realizes when it’s almost been two weeks that he’s looked over something so obvious he feels stupid. It only takes thirty minutes since the moment of realization until he pulls open a screen that shows a list of undercover agents and Derek’s noticeably impressed.

“I need to call this through,” Derek says, getting up and collecting his phone from where it’s been sitting on Stiles’ desk.

Stiles nods.

With a painful twist to his stomach he realizes today is the day he’ll have to say goodbye to Derek, who stopped scaring him about a week ago ago.

**——**

He feels pride when there are more guys in suit in his room. Derek’s colleagues. Not as handsome in their suits, but he figures that they don’t need to be. One handsome CIA agent is enough in this confined space.

For a moment he wishes Lydia would see this, she’d be proud, too. The next he feels the loss that’s soon to come because he’s accustomed to Derek now, to a living human being that doesn’t voice concern all the time, that seems to just accept that his computers are an extension of Stiles.

**——**

Stiles stays in his room and kills zombies without Scott talking through him from his room. It’s different, but Stiles feels different, and feels like the little bit of relief he gets from slashing a zombie’s throat won’t help in the long run when he already feels his solitude creeping up on him.

Before Derek, he felt alright being by himself all the time, the only people he ever saw being Scott, Scott’s mother, his father and Lydia at the library.

Now, hearing Derek pack his bag through the gargling noises of a zombie choking on blood, he knows that going back to being alone will be tough.

He feels the selfish need to ask Derek to stay, even now there’s nothing to stay for anymore, because he knows that he needs him.

**——**

Derek leaves.

**——**

Derek has been gone for almost a week now. It’s been precisely twenty-three days since Stiles met Derek and now, exactly twenty-three days later, he lies in bed and ignores the blinking red light that shows him there are messages for him.

When he checks them a few hours later the victory of Lydia asking him out (to escort her to some party) feels dull and he tells her he is preoccupied.

**——**

It’s been twenty-five days and Stiles feels pathetic when he returns from the supermarket with a six pack of beers and doesn’t even share it with Scott. When he pops the cap off the second one there’s someone at his front door.

“McCall, what the hell are you doing here?” he shouts, his feet dragging when he goes to open the door. However, it’s not Scott.

So not Scott.

“Derek?” he asks, tongue tying itself together when he tries to form his lips around his name. “What’re you doing here?”

“I forgot something,” he says and then Stiles is pressed up into the door frame, passing on the flavor of his cheap beer into a warm mouth that moves hungry against his own.

He breathes against Derek’s lips and wraps his arms around his neck and asks him to never leave again, then kisses away the answer because he’s not sure if he wants to hear it.

**——**

Apparently, the CIA will gladly hire him, long-term.

Maybe he’s being a stupid child for believing someone he’s only known for about a month will be worth it to move for, to _another state_ , but it’s not like they’re even crossing over to the other coast or something.

Besides. He doesn’t believe in love upon first sight, except he sort of does, and he knows that it’s worth it for as long as it may last because any day with Derek is a day he likes a lot.

**——**

Stiles sits in his brand-new apartment, looks out over the skyline through the window, and hacks into the database of some college nearby. It was the top one of Melissa’s list of conditions to allow Scott to tag along with Stiles and his sort-of-maybe-boyfriend to move to Washington.

**1) Stiles, let Scott go to college!!!!**

2) Scott, you call me every week!

3) Eat healthy and keep working out!!!! BOTH OF YOU!!

4) Come home for the holidays, please.

(Stiles doesn't like exclamation points very much, but it does the trick.)

“Make sure to put me in the Philosophy course!” Scott says, prodding Stiles’ shoulder.

“Yeah, yeah. Don’t you worry, child. I won’t come between you and the coffee shop girl.”

“Her name is Allison, Stiles. I told you that.”

Stiles rolls his eyes and when Scott isn’t looking he signs Scott up for Economy instead of Philosophy, but at least does the effort to put Scott in the same dorm building as Allison, so hey, it’s not like he’s _that_ much of a bad friend.

**——**

He curls up to his Derek in bed later that night and plays with Derek's tie. “Scott asked if we want to go check out campus with him tomorrow.”

“What are we, his parents?” Derek asks, but he sounds amused, and Stiles smiles into his neck. “Sure. But only because I want to be there when you try to use your CIA-badge to your advantage.”

Stiles wants to protest, but Derek kisses him to silence and leaves him speechless afterwards.


End file.
